


Etched in kisses

by SevlinRipley



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 13:06:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevlinRipley/pseuds/SevlinRipley
Summary: Prompt: Dozens of kisses pressed all over, cheeks, eyelids, temples, brow, nose, lips, alternating between hard and gentle, playful, reassuring, affectionate.





	Etched in kisses

Lying face to face on the narrow couch, El could feel her one arm falling asleep beneath Mike’s weight. The other was free, though, and she had the backs of her fingers brushing back Mike’s hair over his ear. His eyes were watching her, roaming over her face intently. They often did this. Looked. Studied. El less so, because she’d actually been able to see Mike. While she was gone. Locked up in her tower.

But Mike... Mike had admitted, tearfully, one night, that her face had gone fuzzy in his memory. That it made him feel sick inside. He’d asked if that made him a bad person? If it meant he didn’t love her enough even though she was practically all he could think about. It had choked her up so much she could barely get his name out from between her lips, eyes stinging with tears of her own.

She’d taken his face in her hands. “Look at me. It’s okay... Just look at me. I’m here now. Promise.” And from that point on, he hadn’t really stopped.

El touched him, held him and grounded him. Let him rest and breathe and drift while she anchored him. His hand would move up along her back sometimes, but usually he had it firmly around her waist. And sometimes, if he got tired, he’d tuck his head under her cheek and fall asleep with her held close, knowing he’d awaken if she ever pulled away. So that he’d know, at least. Be able to check that she was safe as she did so. Would be coming back.

And El didn’t mind if it took hours some days, or five minutes on others.

She hummed to herself, and played with his hair. Sometimes she found her voice. Practiced saying words with confidence. Told him stories, usually fictional. Something she’d watched on the t.v. because it was happier than real life. Apart from things that would happen in school. Or with the Party in Mike’s absence.

Even if he’d heard the story before, it didn’t matter. He’d participate in the conversation all the same, or simply sink into the sound of her voice. It had also gone missing...

But now, she was quiet. Dropping her thumb to his jaw, and stretching her fingers out beneath his ear and up into the hairs at his neck.

When she stopped looking at his hair, and dropped her eyes to his face again, there was a little indentation between his brows. Like he got lost in thought, too focused on one thing in particular. Something he was unsure of, or frustrated about.

So El searched his face, and found something most glaringly unimportant to draw him away with.

She moved her fingers up between their faces, and shocked, he pulled his face back, slightly, pressing into the cushion of the couch-back. Eyes spreading wide and then immediately calming. It did some of the work for her, but El just wanted to make absolutely certain...

Smoothing her fingertip gently over one brow then the other, she said light, and sweet, “I like your eyebrows.”

It took a moment for Mike’s mind to unwind what had just happened. It was like that when he was in the thick of his own thoughts. But once he managed to, a small smirk pulled at one corner of his lips. Just a twitch. “Oh.”

A simple, out-of-the-blue statement, was incredibly common for El to make. But it never ceased to amaze and amuse him. “I like your eyebrows too,” he told her, on a warm breath, eyes dodging up to look at them again. Yes, they were what he remembered. What he never wanted to forget.

El frowned to herself slightly, as his eyes went focused again. Her plan had backfired. The indentation was back. And as cute as it was, it looked like it’d give Mike a headache.

Her fingers drew away, over his freckled skin, and back into the folds of his dark hair. She leaned forward, and this time, as his eyes fell closed, she kissed the dent away.

Began littering his whole face with kisses so he wouldn’t have time to let concern wash over his face again. Kissed at each eyebrow, and all across his hairline to the temple she could best reach. Then his eyelid, and the bridge of his nose, down to the tip of it, all while he began giggling, chest shaking with it, his grip on her tightening from glee rather than fear. Kissed over his smile lines, to the corner of his mouth. At specifically his upper lip, then lower lip, and down to his chin until he was crying out her name on a laugh, “El! El, I’m okay. I’m okay! I promise.” Giddy with it. Hand smoothing up her side.

She gave him an extra kiss between his brows, to reaffirm her point, before finally looking into his eyes. “I love you, Mike. You’re not going to forget. You won’t have to.”


End file.
